Going into this film in all sincerity I wanted the ceiling of its potential quality to be much higher than I expected it to be. To be fair I only saw the last installment prior to this so I came in dreading a similar experience and hoping for a better one. While I’ll concede it was a better film it wasn’t by very much at all.

The film starts immediately on the wrong foot with a tired recap that relies too heavily on voice-over and not enough on montage. Granted it is a storytelling crutch to introduce new viewers and/or refresh the memory of fans but even the Friday the 13th series, which practically invented the technique, was more visual and inspired than this attempt at backtracking.

The tonality of this film is, from the very first, off. When you combine the desaturated color palette with the icy, stiff performances and flat-lining storyline you’re in a situation that no stakes can raise. I do grant this film raises the stakes from the last chapter but everything is so rote and done with such little aplomb it has no impact whatsoever.

Essentially the problem that plagues this film is the same that plagued the last one: the conflict seems created to support the action sequences and the action does not seem to flow organically from the conflict. We are given the minimum information and development and expected to be fat and content from that as we watch yet another tiresome action sequence where we as an audience have little to no investment.

Upon looking at the cast list one can easily ask “What is Stephen Rea doing here?” Sadly, that question does not dissipate in my mind as the film progresses. It seems as if Rea wanted nothing to do with this film and that perception makes itself evident in every frame.

In technical terms the films fares slightly better than the narrative does. The 3D is serviceable but rarely exploited and hardly worthy of the upcharge incurred. The effects are decent in execution but in conceptual terms the same unfortunate choices are made and exacerbated like big, hairless, “werewolves” and so on.

The film like the prior installment overdoes gunplay and downplays chase and is always trying to be more action then horror and achieves neither. All it ends up being is an incredibly tedious exercise that minimally advances a muddled mythos.

4/10